sygmath

[sygmath]

Drawers.

I feel disorganised.

Imagine a big chest of drawers. Each of them contains neatly packaged piles of thoughts and information which you have thought, considered and archived for later use or maybe even to be forgotten forever as far as you’re aware.

Most of us have a big chest of drawers like that. It is massive but for the most part you know where to go if you want to fetch a certain thought, impression or piece of knowledge. Sometimes you do it without even thinking about it. You go in, pull open a drawer and boom, here it is. Sometimes you have to search a little bit longer, but at the very least you -know- that it was there somewhere.

Well… I wish I could say the same. I mean, it used to be like this. It used to be pretty relaxed and I knew generally where to go and what to do. I knew what I required and where and what to retrieve at a given time. In fact, every single day I was able to deal with gigantic amounts of information which I would be able to acknowledge, consider and archive every day.

Hundreds of names, faces, interactions, people, places, desires, plans, ideas and more importantly the means and will to pull through with them.

I don’t have that anymore. Not in that way.

Now the drawers jump at me of their own accord, striking out in a frenzied whirlwind of intrusive thoughts and impulses which I find harder and harder to make sense of. Names, faces, places jump out at me as if I were a much hated enemy. It is as if something or someone, perhaps a demon of some kind, sneaked into these recesses of my mind and moved the drawers from where they previously were to all new places, sometimes not even on the same level. Then the papers were taken and placed elsewhere, or maybe even tossed around into the air and left lying around only to be caught in the winds of the fans which the intruder left on before departing.

The sad part is that amidst all of this I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of the villain. Now I’m left to dance amidst the intruding thoughts and ever flowing stream of information, all the while attempting to retain myself intact, mindful of who I am and what is present, past and future.

Maddening? Madness, yes. To try and manage one’s own attention, focus and projects all the while being repeatedly bombarded by stimuli of your own creation which simultaneously you have no control over despite being the only responsible being over their existence.

I feel disorganised.

Like each time I begin to bend to collect my thoughts and place them neatly, a new gust of wind comes, the drawers changed direction or I just feel… exhausted. Drained.

If anything however, this tells me that a big chest of drawers isn’t enough anymore. It isn’t efficient for what I am trying to do and for what I need. Something better is clearly in order. I just wonder how many times I’ll have to force myself to go through this process, this need to clean my room and restructure myself properly from within. But at least we’re almost done. Maybe this’ll be fine after all.

But just as I am about to finish it, I feel an all too familiar sting of claws hooking in on me.

Oh, hello there.

[sygmath]

Why are you shit.

I’m sorry my dude, its just something that I do.

[sygmath]

Demons.

Exorcising demons isn’t all that its cut out to be. There’s not that great a catharsis as movies or books would lead you to believe. Normally one expects that as soon as your demons are through you feel a weight off your shoulders and that for a moment you can find the thread which you were going to follow on to wherever you were meant to go in the first place.

Surprise motherfucker. It isn’t like that. In fact it isn’t anywhere near that! It never is. Even the feeling of relief comes as nothing short of a drowsiness and a desire to sleep. For a moment things were fine sure, but soon enough they come as the overwhelming fatigue and apathy which comes with a prolonged strain and effort.

The demons on one’s shoulders or back or heart or wherever the hell you wish to carry them weight much more than one would be led to believe. Often these manifest doubts, regrets and sometimes… more. Sometimes they manifest in loathing, sometimes they manifest in other ways such as self-harm. Self-harm needs not to be physical. By granting the demons sustenance through these manifestations they will only grow heavier and fatter.

One day these demons will want to pull you down and underground until you’re doing nothing but serving as a bed for these personifications of tears in one’s mind to fester.

But you can always fight them.

Problem is that when you do, when you fight and tear these demons from your being they never go quietly. They never simply back off. Rather, they sink their hooks in you and dig deeper, deeper than ever before. The more you try to pull at them, the deeper the claws go and… when finally, they are pulled away they don’t come off, rather they’re tore off from the very proverbial flesh of your mind.

You’re left bleeding, torn, wounded deeply and weakened. You’re left wondering if this was a mistake, and you’re left to recover often by yourself, because in the end every man is an island no matter if the whole sea around it is surrounded by people.

And while this is some edgy shit to write down, in the end the visuals, the raw and visceral sensation of being torn apart by the healing process provides a much better visualisation for what occurs during this process. How it feels to lose parts of a whole, how it is to lose oneself in a revelry of your own healing process alternating between each battle only to be left further battered and bleeding on the floor. Worse of all? Recovery is never guaranteed.

I’ve lost count by now of how many of these demons I’ve attempted to battle and tear from me over the years. I’ve had this analogy in my mind since I was a young kid, a teen even, and what could be chalked up to the angst and confusion of those years well… these sensations still are very real. They’re all around me. And they keep on digging. And each one that I tear from me leaves little space for liberation and respite as new ones insidiously dig their claws again and deeper still.

But you know how it is.

Round… something.

Fight.

[sygmath]

A cross to bear.

What’s one of the hardest things to do? Well, actually its not hard at all, I do it all the time almost as naturally as I breathe, perhaps even more so considering how sometimes I can barely breathe due to the seasons or illness. So, in fact, I fooled y’all and myself. I didn’t mean hard at all, I meant painful.

So here we go, let’s try this again. You know what’s one of the most painful things to do to oneself? Look back on what you’ve had and what or who you’ve lost so far. And how things have evolved without you and you can’t even justify resentment or anger because these choices were your own and you have to live with them.

What am I talking about precisely? I’m talking about friends. I’m talking about family, I’m talking about love, I’m talking about opportunities and most of all, I’m talking about time. Time is the one true thing that’s never really returned to us and we’d do well to manage it wisely.

We far too often don’t.

It’s pretty painful to look back on the friends which you’ve left behind when you’ve taken the great leap of faith, with whom you’ve compared ambitions, dreams and desires. And by god, how sure one is of taking those steps and how great it will be when you’re reunited... But then you see them pass you by. You see them go and leave and work on their aspirations with who they want and you’re in time, often by your own doing, by virtue of the diverging path you’ve taken, force to face that you’re left in the dust of the fogs of memory... Those were the friends.

It is painful too to think about the family, so loving and supporting and whose efforts to see you succeed and unwavering support produces nothing but mistakes and self-entitlement. No one should have to sacrifice for another, only to see that sacrifice be proverbially spat upon by virtue of one’s actions no matter how convinced you are that they were the right ones. More than anything I do not wish to be a leech upon their belly, and the failures of one’s decisions should never carry with them the unspoken need for help nor the obligation on their behalf to get one back on their feet regardless of how catastrophic such a failure could be.

And to talk about love... hah, how it is to talk about former loves, to see someone who you’ve left behind, who you’ve loved so deeply and by whom you were loved just as intensively move on and be all the better for it well... it hurts. It stings. But then you feel anger at yourself more so than at your other half because you were the one to make the choice to leave, the choice to go and hurt this person with your selfish actions. Now they seek happiness, now they seek their place in the world elsewhere with others. There are wounds left which breed resentment, and this resentment to any sane mind in this situation breeds anger from how unjust it is. So one can only take it in stride, swallow it and... hold onto it like your life depended on it, becoming bitter, increasingly sad and maybe one day you’ll be dead inside enough to never care about it again.

My opportunities? The what-ifs of life. I’ll share with you a story. When I was finishing high-school my mother told me to study, but never told me why or what for. I had grown severely disenchanted and burnt out with school and I couldn’t be bothered. I wanted to party, have adventures and focus on the things I was truly good at. Writing, biology, geology, all the things which led me to explore the world and could bring me to places. I couldn’t be bothered with Math. And so I never did during that year and flunked as a result. It wasn’t until my grades came out and I was sure I would have to retake the subject that my mother revealed to me that the reason she’d been pushing me so hard was because she had a rather well-paying opportunity for me in wait and since I’d lost the year, I’d now not be able to enrol for it as I did not meet the minimum requirements. I lost an opportunity due to the decisions made by me when I thought I was following what was the most important at the time. But this is simply the earliest instance of it. Many more examples of this happened after and well... it was only a beginning which riddled me with “what ifs” and consistent second guessing. Even if I often portray myself as driven, doubts eat away at my mind on what kind of wrong turns I’ve taken that led me to where I am.

And finally... time. They say it is through a man’s mistakes that we learn and grow to be the people we want to be. But just how many mistakes are we allowed before time runs out on you and it goes from being a learning process to the needless repetition of a vicious cycle? Now is going to work out, this is it, this is the big one, one thinks as yet another wrong turn is taken which will only show itself several years down the line. Or maybe it is the consistent twists and turns which constantly cancel one another out to form a twisted line that deviates from the road you set out to follow in the first place. When is time spent too much time?

Personally, I’m growing tired. My strength and drive and energy seem to be out of balance and whether that is a weakness that is irreversible or a complete symptom of burnout which I can yet recover from I am unsure. Which is funny considering how out of all the people if there’s someone who should know this it is me. 

But no matter.

All of these things were choices of mine and I’ve deconstructed myself enough over the length of this wall of text and despite it all, I should stand by my convictions, particularly when all of the dents and cracks which appear on them stem from continuous second guessing, former experience and speculation. The context changed, right? The experience provides me some more insight? Perhaps the support I have is different? 

It is time to take all these crosses, haul them up and keep walking. 

Let’s see how far I make it this time.

[sygmath]

A whole bunch of nothing.

I’ve had an idea last time to write about what I’ve accomplished since I moved here and the whole bunch of nothing which I’ve found when I took that wrong turn at Albuquerque and landed in Sweden.

Truth be told, I had a better idea of what I wanted before this post. I had an excellent string of thoughts which were coherent and they made sense in my head before I sat down to type them out. I called the topic “A whole bunch of nothing” in hopes that with a structured title to this little chronicle I’d have something ready to dish out.

But I didn’t.

So now I’ve got even less than nothing. I’ve got a negative balance of ideas which in turn make me feel like I needed to find a way to describe it a little better, a little more... eloquently? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been good at this.

Let us try again.

So far a year has passed and with the mental deficit which I currently suffer from, there’s little bar the people I live with to keep me sane. I’ve had my money depleted over the past year, the beaurocracy is to drive a man nuts and the government agents which are meant to assist with your cases do nothing and I suspect even hold you in contempt for trying.

I’ve not had no wellfare, nor have I requested because in truth all which I want is to work, pay taxes and move on with my life in this place. It has been rather trying. Failing health has also been one hell of an issue which drains me mentally and physically but heh... 

One just keeps on trucking, right? You’ve got to soldier on towards... somewhere. That’s the problem when you’ve got a whole bunch of nothing. It feels like there’s nothing to build up upon to go somewhere and that there’s an unsurmountable gap of some kind between where you’re at, who you are, what you can do and well... wherever or whoever you want to be. Nonetheless, I just am going in circles now. I suppose I’m just going to get back into the habit of writing and we’ll see what comes after that.

You know what I miss though? Having control of my life and you know what the worst part of it is?

When the next leap of faith presents itself before me...

I’ll just jump again. 

[sygmath]

Falling freely.

Remember when I said I didn’t know whether I was flying or free falling? Well, its been free falling all the way. I’ve got neither the words to describe this sensation nor the ability I’d wager to put it properly in paper.

It has been well over a year now since I’ve completed my move and the times have been atribulated and dark. To say that I dislike it here would be a massive understatement. When I stood at that precipice of change and took the leap, confident and daring that I’d pull through well... Boy am I bad at calculating risks. 

If one were to analyse what I’ve built over the past year one would see that there’s not much to say for myself. I’ve published a few articles and certainly got a lot of weight, that my friends, I built plentifully. I also think I’ve made myself incredibly depressed. For someone who deals in ridiculous amounts of work and enjoys pressures and such well... this year’s bunch of nothing and feeling myself drifting well beyond my own control or willpower has been akin to water upon a rock. Slowly but surely eroding it to nothing.

But... yes! A bunch of nothing. That’s what I’ll think about tomorrow. After all, truth be told, I’ve no idea what drove me to write this again, nor do I know if I should keep this up, or if there’s still any following left in this place whatsoever, which was already diminute to start with.

Regardless, a bunch of nothing will follow suit. For now, falling freely is the order of the day, and fuck me, does the ground look ever closer. One would think hitting it would be a relief.

But as it were there’s no relief.

Just a slow climb back up. 

Lets get to it. 

[sygmath]

The big move.

Its been two days. Two whole days after I’ve shifted countries in search of a better life. Behind me, in the old country stands my family, my friends and loved ones. In front of me... well. What does stand in front of me? insecurity, opportunity, fear, doubt, and a strange optimism which is often best left for others younger than I. 

How do I even begin to describe the feeling of standing at the precipice of change, stretching out your wings and taking that deep breath before the plunge. And though I’ve already taken flight for two days, it still does not feel like I’ve taken off the ground at all. When I look around me, I can’t even tell whether I’m actually flying or just falling freely. Hmm...

I suppose I’ll have to develop this in a while.

[sygmath]

I don’t spend time here.

You know, its ocurred to me that I don’t spend nearly enough on this website. Asides from the copious amounts of pornography which seem ubiquitous to the SJW cesspool that one hears people talking so much about as well as the toxic fandoms... it becomes strange. One does not see where they can turn to in order to reach out and contact them.

Its been a long time. Longer than I thought I’d be out there. A lot of things have changed. I’ve finished university and graduated. I’m moving from Portugal to Sweden in a short while. Perhaps even as short as a couple of weeks.

Its strange... but I’ll comment on my strangeness later on. I won’t make a commitment to write every day as I have. But I’ll make a commitment to atleast show up and update whenever I find something relevant to say. I might even make a small report section, or I might do nothing at all. 

Regardless.

I feel a wave coming.

[sygmath]

A lazy day.

How does one cope with a lazy day? Do you just hope it goes away? I never did derive pleasure from sitting still. And damn, its just like... I have things to do but none of which can be done now. I’m addicted to doing things and the idea of productivity.

What do you do when you’re like this? Do you wait? Do you try and do something productive only to realise you’ve been starting something which you can’t finish in a day? Or do you tune out and wait for the day to end so you can resume the rush tomorrow?

Everyone is busy.

But atleast the day is over. Or nearly there. Sleep tight whenever you get to it.

[sygmath]

Peeking my head.

I don’t know how to feel about this. I mean, having stopped to write a while ago, it feels strange to suddenly go forth and pick it up again just like that. I suppose its an anxiety of some kind? Is it performance anxiety? Not being able to keep up the schedule which I wanted to hold myself accountable for or maybe showing myself over time that what I thought I had to say is actually only relevant to myself? Or huh... perhaps not even that considering that not even I have been writing here.

A lot of things have changed. I’ve finished my internship and graduated. Now I am finishing my masters’ degree in organizational psychology and management. I suppose I’ll be easying myself into this position a little bit over time. What? What inspired me to write this?

Actually, that’s a funny thing. I was inspired by a water bottle. Essentially, when I was coming out of the gym yesterday, I was spinning my water bottle around and well, I realised that when I stopped it upside down, the water took a moment of stillness at the bottle’s top before it began sliding down and well... it was beautiful. Seeing the water form graceful arches before sliding down its walls was wonderful. And that’s when I realised that I wished I had recorded that moment, so I could observe it better, in slow motion. It made me realise too, even if I knew it from before that the prettiest moments often occur in the span of a second. We often don’t realise it until much later. I suppose that was inspiring enough to try and get going again, right?

Right.

[sygmath]

Trouble with Dreams pt... Something.

I woke up this morning with a sour taste in my mouth. A taste which I’ve not had in a few years.

So, today as I slept I had a dream. A dream in which I was with a few friends and so far so good. All was well. Except that we were trying to make a delivery through what seemed to be Jurassic Park. And as such, after being attacked by a creature I can’t even remember, we are thrown and flipped over. I crawl out of the Jeep with my friends and proceed to a five star resort where I am supposed to make a delivery. Upon arriving I’ve come to realise that what I’m delivering is a huge block of cocaine and I need to get past my father to do so.

I run into the bathroom with another friend, and then, when we come out, we’re three floors up and I have to run into the room where the people expecting the delivery are at. They all cheer me on as I unveil one kilogram of cocaine in one single block and then begin to prepare it. I figured I had to do it with my driver’s license for some reason, for the sake of ritualism and tradition. The whole thing was stupidly retarded. And... that is when it begins bothering me. I noticed myself wanting just a line, even as I’m being dragged out of there by my friend. Upon looking back, we notice the whole fucking place is on fire, and people are swinging from branches and dropping down and throwing themselves on the floor.

I take a line and spend the rest of my evening dividing my time between snorting it further and being energised and throwing people down flights of stairs for my own amusement. And then another line, the amazing feeling of energy beyond control and throwing more people down the stairs. Another line and even as they get up, I drop down, and using my feet, catapult them off the stairs as well. The whole thing was stupid and I was having a blast! But still the nagging feeling at the back of my head ate away at me. That I needed just another line.

I’ve never had problems with addiction. I’ve never had issues with undergoing cold-turkey on any sort of substance before. Yet this morning I woke up with a sour taste in my mouth.

And with it came I want I haven’t had present on my mind for a long time.

[sygmath]

People don’t exist in the morning.

They don’t. I’ve noticed this throughout my times working and generally getting up earlier than 10 am. Or rather, they do, but they do not function. They’re more automatons than people, functioning only because they have to and united in a strange camaraderie against the very concept of work in the morning.

How many people find it funny, or quirky not to be spoken to in the morning? “Don’t talk to me unless I’ve had my coffee.” Some say, and people laugh and shrug it off. Personally, the behaviour seems somewhat strange, and alien to me even. Sure, I can understand wanting to sleep in a little more, being tired and drained and how sometimes that produces some degree of irritability. I can be quite moody myself.

But when you’re working? If you have to be somewhere, you might as well ensure that you’re having the best time you can have, and try to contribute to a better and healthier working environment. There’s some strange glorification of the dislike for the morning, and I to me, it seems a cultural phenomenon, and people just feel comfortable sharing in that sentiment, as anything else would require effort.

So back to my point. It seems like people don’t exist in the morning. Instead, they look at one another, through blank staring eyes, a hint of a conscience underneath the veil of sleep, announced by grunts which can only barely pass off as intelligible. If I were anymore poetic, I’d be trying to to make some lovely analysis, something deep and thought provoking. Something which could give a potential reader any food for thought... but I’m not. So all in all.

People don’t exist in the morning. Not in the way we know them to at least. And frankly,fair enough. It only leaves me more things to look at and talk about. Though sometimes... I miss the rythm.

[sygmath]

A rocky ride.

It’s been one hell of a rocky ride. The computer was out for almost a month, I had exams in the meantime and I’m still completely lost with my thesis. I have no idea what I’m doing, as usual, and this was beginning to weight down on me. So... where have I been? What does this leave me with?

I’m not sure, to be fair. I suppose I was working on a writing style, which then became a catartic exercise associated with a diary, which isn’t really the purpose of this. Hmm... still. Perhaps I’d do well to slowly ease myself into this thing, and the writing I used to do. Yeah... after all, I’m still facing the wall, though I suppose I see a crack in it. Though what if? What if there’s another wall just behind it?

Lets start.

[sygmath]

Computer blew up.

Due to a horrid and tragic accident I am computer deprived. All posts will have to follow from work. The new year’s review will follow up on Monday. See you soon.

[sygmath]

New year!

Time for celebration and all that. Tomorrow, I’ll evaluate what needs doing this new year. I don’t make new year’s resolutions, rather, I prefer setting up goals for what I’ll get done. And fuck, it’ll be quite the huge year. I’m both excited and terrified. As for the party itself, it was chilled. Relaxed, amongst good friends.

It features copious amounts of carbonara and hot chocolate. Somehow it worked.

[sygmath]

Logs from the Wall. Day 1.

“I’ve been sitting here for two weeks now and I’ve got no idea how to cross the wall. It seems solid and I’m not even sure if there’s anything beyond it. If I try to hit it, it seems to be completely solid and opaque. However, it also seems to be built by well... artificial means? I am not sure what to make of this.

He sat and pondered for a while longer. It isn’t like him not to have an answer, especially after so long. He figured he could at the very least understand his path and change it accordingly but... the road seemed to only go on that direction. Sighing, he set his laptop down and rolled over. Perhaps if he slept it’d help him somehow.

But regardless, his sleep wouldn’t equate rest. He knew this well. Its been far too often that he’s been like this. But oh well... so be it right? Just weather the storm, bend with the wind and stick your roots firmly in the ground. That’s how he’s always been. Weathering it out.

He knew it’d work somehow even if at the time it all felt like an exercise in futility. “But fuck it.” he figured. He had to stop himself from thinking before it became worse and worse. Right now, he was going to sleep. And so, he turned around and closed his eyes.

And though sleep came, rest never did.

[sygmath]

The Wall pt. 2

“Do you mind?” He’s nervous, and a little bit on edge actually. He’s been staring at the wall for a while now. Across it lie written several sentences, broken and unfinished most of them and on top of that, though he knows the language and the feel of these sentences its like he can’t even read them.

“Do you mind?”

The wall didn’t answer back. Of course not, its a wall. Its amongst the things that walls don’t do. Talking. Still he paced along the wall, back and forth. “Come on, the least you could do is give me a hint.” He said, but he was met with no answer to his riddle.

He didn’t understand. He set on this path so sure of what he was doing, so sure of the writing style he had to define himself, but instead, he found himself after only a few months’ worth of walking standing before this immense wall which blocked his path. And to make it worse, everything around it seemed black and empty.

He’s sat down since he arrived and found himself looking for answers. He waited, pulled out his cellphone, his laptop and many other things which provided suitable distractions as he thought up a way (or killed time until it dawned on him) to break through the wall to better develop his ideas and writing style.

Suffice to say it only served as a distraction. 

He sighed and leaned against it. There must be something he can think of to make it easier for him. Something which may provide some solution to his gigantic obstacle which stood before him and for some reason, unlike his beliefs, he just couldn’t power through. He always saw himself as having a solution but now this! He couldn’t just abandon this path, so instead, he sat down, leaned against the wall, found himself a convinient socket to plug his laptop in and well.... he created a log.

At least until there’s some sort of sign.